News reports often highlight the sensational and irrational behaviors of divorcing parents leading to a distorted understanding of the typical patterns of divorce resolution in the U.S. Data from actual court proceedings often tell a different story. In Washington State, the Court Research unit keeps track of how divorcing parents manage custody arrangements.
In the 2010 report, there are some interesting findings about parenting plans. First, in general, children are more likely to be in a custody arrangement in which they spend more time with their mothers than their fathers, but about 18% of all the cases are a 50/50 split.
The Washington State Court also asks about risk factors such as domestic violence, child abuse, and chemical dependence and examines how these factors affect residential time. Overall, about 88% of the families have none of these risk factors. (That's interesting by itself!) About 4% of the mothers and 10% of the fathers are identified as having a risk factor. As would be expected, as the number of risk factors increase, the parent without the risks is more likely to have full custody. When a mother has 3+ risk factors 65% of the fathers are likely to have full custody and when fathers have high risk factors (3+), about 75% of the mothers have full custody. In general, fathers were more likely to lose residential time with their children due to risk factors than mothers.
So how were these parenting arrangements decided? Almost 9 out of 10 cases (88%) were decided by the parents themselves. Only 2% were decided by the courts through a trial and another 10% were decided by default. In those cases, decided by the parents themselves, 22% of the parents chose equal time. In the contested and default cases, only 5% of the cases resulted in equal time for both parents.
There were also differences in the cases that involved legal representatives. In general, about 60% of the cases, both parents represented themselves. In those cases in which fathers had attorneys but not the mothers, 38% of the fathers got the more parenting time and 38% of the mothers got more parenting time. When both parties had attorneys, fathers were more likely to get some parenting time (about 40%) compared to cases in which both parties represented themselves (only 25% of fathers in these cases got "some' parenting time). It should be noted that these differences cannot necessarily be attributed to the use of an attorney since cases involving attorneys may be quite different than those in which both parties represent themselves.
Finally, the Court asked parents about their preferences for dispute resolution. About half (49%) of the parents would favor mediation as a path to resolution and 38% would favor the courts. However, those cases in which one of the parents had a risk factor, the courts were strongly favored over mediation (about two-thirds).
This provides an interesting portrait of the actual patterns of custody and parenting plans among divorcing parents in Washington State. Over time it will be possible to examine changes in these patterns and to examine whether policy and social circumstances change these patterns. An important finding in these data is that for the most part, most divorcing parents are not identified as potential risks to their children and many couples are making their own decisions about these matters.
Established Risk Factor, Mother, Father
Abused or neglected a child, .7, 2.1
Chemical dependency issues, 1.7, 3.9
Committed Domestic Violence, .5, 4.3
Other Risk Factor 1.1 3.6
For child abuse, the ACF estimates, "Among all abused children, those abused by their biological parents were about equally likely to have been abused by mothers as by fathers (51% and 54%, respectively)." That's about 1:1 but this report has 3(fathers):1(mothers)!
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/natl_incid/
Using alcoholism as a proxy for substance abuse, the CDC estimates, "It is estimated that about 17% of men and about 8% of women will meet criteria for alcohol dependence at some point in their lives." That's about 2(men):1(women), similar to this report.
http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/mens-health.htm
For interpersonal violence the CDC estimates, "Each year, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes. Men are the victims of about 2.9 million intimate partner related physical assaults." That's about 1(man):2(women) yet this report has
1(man):9(women)!
http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/intimatepartnerviolence/index.html
Interesting. These equal time custody numbers differ sharply from Maccoby and Mnookin's "Dividing the child: social and legal dilemmas of custody". In their 1980s study of California divorces they found that about 33% of fathers wanted sole physical custody, 35% wanted joint physical custody, 1.8% wanted split custody.
Out of court settlements are made in the shadow of the law. Given family court's gender bias, it is likely that the Washington state numbers reflect legal reality, not both parents desires.
The author might give readers the impression that child custody is amicably decided by the parents in Washington state when this is not really the case.
Washington REQUIRES a pre-divorce seminar, with divorcees attending separate classes. When I attended, a large sign was prominently displayed at the front door which read: DO NOT FIGHT OVER CHILD CUSTODY, IT WILL HARM YOUR KIDS.
Since about 90% of children are in the care of mothers at the start of divorce proceedings, this message was clearly directed at fathers. The seminar itself repeated these tenants, along with a healthy dose of "abuse" warnings (all directed at men). I, and other men, left the seminar with the feeling there was no way we would get our kids - as the seminar apparently intended.
This is just ONE of the many obstacles a father faces in trying to get shared parenting or extra visitation time. Honest lawyers will tell men right up front they have NO chance of getting custody. Dishonest lawyers will give hope, as they suck the money from you, only to say "Sorry, we did our best", after the man loses.
88% of Washington men have to face up to the fact that they will lose their children and elect not to fight a sure losing battle. But that is not what they want, nor is it amicable. It is big government.
Let me put forth an anology. Lets say I wanted to sell you a grapefruit. If we couldnt agree on the price, we'd go to mediation and it was widely known that the mediator would side with me, and make you buy a single grapefruit for $100.
My starting offer to you is $100 for the grapefruit. Can you move me off that price? Perhaps you can with a bunch of other incentives, but I'm still going to sell it to you for $50 which we all know is well above the real market value. Why? Knowing up front what the mediator would do, biased your negotiations and as such, you "settled" in a very unreasonable position.
Until investigators can claim to know the impact of court gender preferences and how such plays out where the parents "determine things themselves", such statistics are of little value.
Yes, it might be nice if they were trying to improve the fairness of the system and do what is best for the children. However, that is not the case.
Washington state is in deep financial crisis. The government is in desperate need of funds.
With the inception of the Brady Act, the federal government provides MATCHING FEDERAL DOLLARS for every dollar collected by states. So all states have an incentive to collect child support - if they can collect a billion dollars in child support, they get a billion dollars in matching federal funds - the extra funds do NOT go to children, but into state coffers.
So states go all out to collect funds from "deadbeats", even if there is no history of non-payment. Non-custodial parents routinely are ordered by judges to have their wages garnished by the state so that the state can collect the bonus federal dollars.
You can be assured that Washington state wants nothing more than to increase the amount of child support collected (they are currently weighing the option of increasing child support levels up to 65% of a father's income) and making sure ALL divorce settlements include wage garnishment through the state - to increase the state's share of federal funding.
They are not interested in children.
Divorce is a lucrative industry for all involved but the people who are actually going through the divorce.
I suspect that the laws are much easier on Fathers now than they used to be. Maybe with computers, Fathers can't disappear the way they used to. They have more choice about whether or not they want to parent their kids. When they remarry they reject their old children. One hopes that wage garnishment is used as a last resort.
65 percent of income is unbelievable, I agree. But, men make so much more money than women do, especially in the lower classes. Women have to work for 8 or 10 or 12 $/hr, men make 30 or 40.
The Gov. of Washington is a heavy duty advocate for abused women and children. Her parents separated within a month after she was born because her Father was abusive. So she is very aware of the situations that women have routinely had to deal with in life.
If you're one of the new style of Fathers who is very loving and responsible I applaud you. You're one of the good things that comes from this new era.